Posts filed under “IPOs”

Late last year, we had a wholesaler from a major ETF firm in our office. At the time, the chatter was all about the upcoming Alibaba IPO. It was going to be (in his words) “huge, disruptive, incredibly powerful – and you cannot get any.”

Never mind that IPO returns are on average mediocre or worse, or that chasing hot syndicate deals is not in our wheelhouse. This guy had a great story to tell, and to the uninitiated, it was enrapturing.

“This is going to be the hottest Tech IPO of the year, bigger than Twitter, bigger than Facebook. Only firms on mainland China are going to have access to it. (Not you). The way to play it is to own all of similar companies in China that are in the Technology and Internet space.”

The story, as it turns out, was completely and utterly wrong. No, thius is not listing in China. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is listing on the NYSE, and anyone who wants to can buy its stock. Whether you should is an entirely different matter, but not the subject of this column.

Source: MSN No, no, no, no, and one last no. Look, I get it, I really do: You are all excited — dare I say “atwitter”? — at the prospects of today’s big initial public offering. It is oversubscribed by 30X (or so we hear), priced at the high end of its range, and…Read More

Click to enlarge: Source: Bloomberg Fascinating comparison between Google and Microsoft gains since their IPOs from Dave Wilson. Earlier this month, Google managed to slip past Mister Softee in terms of market cap (MSFT is now $244.8B vs GOOG $243.56B). Microsoft Corp.’s stock-market performance during its first eight years as a public company far surpassed Google. MSFT…Read More

The highly-anticipated Facebook IPO was plagued with problems, potentially costing thousands of dollars to many small investors and further damaging Wall Street’s reputation on Main Street. A Wall Street Journal report.

However big a clusterfuck you may have previously believed the Facebook IPO was, this WSJ article – Nasdaq CEO Lost Touch Amid Facebook Chaos — makes you realize it was actually worse, much worse. The Journal politely but devastatingly skewers Nasdaq for the bungled IPO trading. The words that come to mind is inexcusable and incompetent….Read More

John Hempton at Bronte Capital often makes for an interesting read. Today, however, I have to disagree with his take on the ethical obligations of investment bankers in the Facebook IPO. (Facebook and the sad case of ethical investment bankers). John writes: “In an IPO an investment bank takes a fee from a business to…Read More

The ongoing decline in Facebook stock is little more than a reassessment of the private market’s valuation — now recognized as somewhere between wildly optimistic and clinically insane. Bloomberg calls Facebook the “the worst-performing large initial public offering during the past decade” losing more than 20% in the 10 days since the IPO….Read More

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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